On-Camera Flash Photography

This best-selling book on flash photography techniques for on-camera speedlites is based on the articles published on this website, but the material has been fleshed out into a cohesive and thorough approach to getting the best from your on-camera speedlight.

Particular care was taken to present it all with a logical flow with the intention that it will all progressively help the reader attain a better understanding of flash photography.

You can either purchase a copy via Amazon USA or Amazon UK. Alternately, if you’d like an autographed copy of the book, you can order one directly from me via the links below. The book will also available on the Apple iBook Store. Also check for the Amazon Kindle version.

The image on p.71 (plate 10-13) has a slight error. It says that I bounced the flash to my right, but as should be clear from the photograph, I did indeed bounce the flash to my left. (I have a life-long tendency to confuse left and right when I give directions or descriptions, and it unfortuntely creeped in there as a typo with that image.)

Neil…Big fan of your site, wish I had time to keep mine up. Love your book though. I actually was waiting for it to come out and was pleasantly surprised. Never thought of metering with the histogram for flash, nice tip. Keep up the good work.

Decided to support a hardworking photog who contributes much of his knowledge to the public – not to mention needing a good book on this subject! Looking forward to many details so often left out of many publications. Are you listening Joe?

It generates some HTML/Javascript that can be inserted into a website, WordPress, Blogger, or MySpace. It carries all the major social bookmarking websites, including a few you might not have heard about. A lot of commercial websites are using this service, so AddThis is an accepted technology.

Your web designer should look into AddThis. It will be easier than setting up the links/buttons manually.

(I’m not affiliated with AddThis, but we do use it at my workplace to support our websites.)

I’ve been following your site for sometime now and throughout I’ve had a suspicion that you have a South African connection. Seeing the Madiba photographs added to my suspicion, which has finally been confirmed by the Bio in your book. I’m interested in buying your book preferable one with an autographed. Could you please tell me if there is a way for the book to be sent to Pretoria and how much it would cost.

Neil, I have read your book which I buy on Amazon and the only thing I ask is when your next book will come, “of camera flash” which I am sure I will enjoy as much as the first.
I’m from Dominican Republic.

Got your book from Amazon and just finished reading it last night. A veritable treasury of knowledge about flash photography. As I read the book, I could visualize photos I had taken over the years and knew now how I could improved them.

I will have to read it again to absorb the lessons until I do all this without thinking. Thank you.

Neil–I was referred to your Web site as an excellent resource for understanding and effectively using TTL metering techniques with ambient light. The site’s show-and-tell teaching style is very practical and straightforward, with immediately actionable tips and techniques based in practice, not just theory. After working through the TTL pages only, I ordered your book. Thanks for publishing great content online and, better, thanks for bundling it up into a purchasable volume. Cheers! Will

Got your book today, first impression is great!
Thanks for your little note, much appreciated.
When your next book is ready (off camera flash)
i will buy that one immediately. Happy New Year
and all the best. Greetz! Twan

I’m just finiahed your book and it has helped me enormously. I am not ashamed to admit I was a 45 deg omnibouncer but now I’m boucing it all over the place and getting much better results. I do look strange wandering the streets of Oxford (UK) with a large piece of black foam attached to my flash though! ;-)

(I left a glowing review on Amazon as I think so many would benefit from your book – do you intend to write any more?)

Glad to hear about the new book in progress – I’ll watch out for it next year.

Your book talks about flash synch speed and my D300 has an option for 1/320 (auto FP) but when I set this and have the shutter at 1/320 (manual mode) I get reduced power from the 1/250 shutter speed. I’m using an sb-900. I have had to set the d300 to 1/250 (auto FP) and this works fine at 1/250 shutter speed. Am I doing something wrong?

I downloaded the book thru Kindle Store today . Not started reading yet and just glanced thru . I am sure its going to be a life time experience going thru all the practical examples but one thing which is disturbing is that the quality of photographs on the kindle edition is bad . These are not clear .

Yeh I downloaded it from Amazon last night and shame about the photo’s being poor, I guess the kindle thing is poor resolution? I use a app on mac to view the book just wish I bought the book now. That said it is so far a fantastic read and easy to follow. I have bin following this site for a few months now and is up there with my fav sites too follow.

I lurk on your blog regularly and learn as much as I can, or reaffirm things I’m doing with lighting. I bought the book, if you read blogs like this you should support the content creators in what ever way make scenes. Good luck with the book.

At first I thought the book was simply a collection of your blogs, as many of the images and lessons in the book have appeared on this site. However, it is much more than that. As a pro, I am not in the habit of spending my hard-earned cash (very hard-earned in some cases) on yet another how-to manual, so it needed to be special to get me to buy. It needed to be even more special for me to actually start using the techniques. It worked on both levels.

So, even though you struggle to tell left from right, congratulations on a spectacular success….

Neil, reading your book at the moment! Thanks for the clear explanations!! Discovered a small typo on page 13: if a flash bracket is used the battery pack can be screwed onto the onto the vertical pillar. This might be added to the list of typos if you wish.

Hi Neil,
Greetings from downunder(Adelaide)!! Found your book really, really useful. I am astonished by the quality of light you get using on-camera flash bounce appropriately. I am also very happy that you share your personal experience and settings with your public through the website and your book. There is a lot for me to internalise and practice from reading your book, but I am very keen to begin practising your techniques because it will eventually free me up from carrying too much gear on location shoots; indoor or out.
Thanks once again for an engrossing read, and I look forward to your upcoming book on off-camera flash. Any firm timelines yet for publicaton???

Hi from Tokyo, Japan!
I got a copy of your flash photography book about a week ago and have kept reading it again and again since then. It does help me understand more and more about using ceiling bounced flash light effecively and controlling it as I want, and I am sure that it adds more spice on my wedding work.
Thank you for sharing your techniques, experience and useful tips through the book. I’m also looking forward to your next book, and please let us know when it comes out!!

I got your book few months ago and iam reffering it almost everyday. well on page 38 i saw following
1) When the scene/Subject is light in tone,you will increse the Exposure
2) when the scene/Subject is dark in tone you will decrease the exposure

and its stated under the section of Flash exposure compensation. my question is are you talking about the FEC or Total Exposure compensation on Camera body? if i understood it correctly its about FEC .is the Darker objuct less Exposure compensation & Lighter objuct more exposure compensation rule is applicable for FEC too?

and on Page 39 on the Table # 4 Wheather the Subject is offcenter or centered in the frame… How does the TTL/BL flash effect the subject if its centered or offcentered?
Thanks
Anoop

Anoop, the idea that you need to adjust your exposure down for a darker tone / scene,
and adjust your exposure up for a brighter tone / scene,
holds true whenever you are using reflective metering, such as with your camera’s meter.
This is regardless of whether you are using an Automatic metering mode like Program or Aperture Priority, or even Manual metering mode.

It also holds true for TTL flash since it is an automatic metering mode. Therefore you would adjust FEC in the same way.

The only time you don’t adjust your exposure up and down like that, is when you are using an incident light meter like a hand-held meter.

How the TTL flash metering is affected by the position of your subject, is something that depends on the metering pattern of your camera, and the algorithms written for the flash metering. There is no way to give absolute and specific advice about this.

Hello Neil,
Your blog rules and it has changed the way I use my flash! Thanks for being so totally cool and sharing this valuable info with the whole world.
I bought your book on Amazon.co.uk and I posted a well meant positive review, I think that’s the least I could do :-)
Kind regards,
William

Neil
Thanks …so the Bottom line is the FEC on Flash itself need to bump up 2-3 stops if the Subjuct is lighter in tone and – 2 to3 stops if the Subjuct is darker in tone. and of couse i know this is applicable for Exposure compensation on camera body also am i correct?
Thanks
Anoop

Wendy, the book does assume an understanding of how aperture / shutter speed / ISO inter-relate. Beyond that, I truly believe this book is one of the best introductions to the topic of flash photography. The feedback on Amazon will bear this out.

Besides, which other book (or DVD) has built-in customer support like this? : )

In your shot on page 71. The wedding couple at the table in front of a large window.(photo plate 10.13) Your settings are 1/160 f4 iso 1250 and +2.3 on Flash. The ambient light appears to be f16 1/125 ISO 100.

Because I am having trouble conceiving how bright ambient light wont blow out at such a setting I tried it. i am not having much luck in getting detail. Its blown out. Is there something I am missing? Does the increase in Flash Exp have something to do with it? I can’t seem to get past this?

Thank you for putting together such a wonderful array of learning material for us to learn from. Its greatly appreciated.

I recently found your site and love it! Seeing that you had a book out I immediately decided to buy it! But not available as a digital book?
That was the first thing I looked for as I am now converted to digital library. As many folks are nowadays…

Will … the book was available on Amazon for a while as a Kindle download, but the quality of the images were sub-par. The book has subsequently been withdrawn as an electronic book, and I have no idea what the status of that is.

I recently bought your book here in Bangkok where I am living since May 1997.

The book interested me in the shop as I read that you are (obviously) from the RSA, graduated in engineering and worked in television broadcasting.

Photography has been a hobby of mine since I received my first 35mm SLR as a gift back in 1984. I have been doing digital since 2000.

While reading your book the penny finally dropped – the number of clicks on each wheel of my Sony A700 (and KMD7) and how they inter-relate now finally makes sense. And I do understand now (for the first time) why the shutter speed can be used to bring out the background without affecting the flash exposure.

As an engineer I find this book brilliant. From your book I learned practical things which none of the previous 20 books on photography could get across.

I have now moved my camera off A and onto M. I have pre-loaded initial settings for outdoor photography into M1, indoor settings into M2 and studio work into M3 and assigned the C-button on my A700 for flash compensation. (The KMD7 has a separate dial for flash compensation.)

Thank you for a most useful practical book with quality photographs to support the text.

Your book is part of my permanent photography library and I will be among the first to get your next book. The only negative is the title. You should have cut the title off after the word “Techniques”. I was hesitant at first to get the book because I thought that the portrait/wedding context was too specific for my needs. Of course after taking a chance and reading it I found it dealt with the basics which is exactly what I wanted.

Just ordered the book directly from you, figured you might get to keep a little more of the profit this way. Just a small way of sending a BIG thank you for all you share with us in this wonderful site.

Respectfuly,

Carlos A – becoming a better photographer in great part thanks to you!

Just ordered the book. I’ve been taking photos for friends and now “friends of friends” etc and really want to hone my flash skills. Discovered your site a few days ago and purchased the book from B-N today!!! Excellent tips & advice easily explained.

Having read On-Camera Flash several times and with a photography book collection of over 75 titles, I can honestly say this is one of the most instructive, comprehensive and well thought out books on flash photography available. Don’t hesitate for a second getting it. I can’t wait for the next one. Dave

One sugestion to your excelent book. I think is necesary add some technical back up, like for intance when the flash shoot, it take only 1/1000 seconds in close, but the shutter curtains is still open and ambient light is incoming for a time. This time is controled for the velocity of the camera.

I am engineer and I need this type of explanation, because is more easy understand what you say.

Victor … The two images are comparison images. Without flash, I can only expose for the bride, and I have to accept the outside exposure. In the photo without flash, the outside areas are completely blown out.

By using (bounce) flash, I can retain the quality of light inside.
I can now also change my settings and still get correct exposure for the bride (via the flash exposure), and the outside areas are now brought closer to where I wanted it in terms of exposure.

I just purchased your book and I’m very excited. I first saw you on the B&H video series “What’s the F Stop” I must have watched them 4 times over. I found your blog and I can’t seem to get off of it. I’m just a pure amateur taking family and trip photos with my T2i and NISSIN di866 flash gun. Here I thought bouncing off the ceiling was the only way. I’ve been trying your techniques, and I’m loving the results. I just have one question. What’s the best F stop for a wedding photo? (Just Kidding)

Neil, can you recommend a good book on the art of seeing, for weddings?
I’m getting ready to get back into it and I feel a bit rusty and my “seeing” hasn’t been that great lately. or maybe you have some posts on here that talk about that?
thanks
Larry

Hey Neil,
I just bought your book “On Camera Flash – Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography” and love it. I bought it in the Kindle form and can’t tell you how many highlights I have made in it.
I have read other books on flash photography and it’s really interesting to see how different photographers approach the same issue in different ways.
One question I had was…what is the furthest distance from a wall or ceiling that you would attempt to bounce your flash from? Say using an SB-900.
Cheers, Ken

Can I download your books as pdf files??
I live on Curacao,and it is a headache to order and have it delivered here.Would be great if I could pay with paypall and just downloaded them.
Cheerio from Curacao

I am sure I could browse this amazing website and glean much of the info in the book….but I love books, and there is nothing like having all of this and more in a nice readable format.
Just ordered the book, cannot wait to get it!
Steph

availability of my flash photography books

I’ve had several people tell me that my books aren’t available on Amazon’s Kindle anymore. So I double-checked with the publisher, Amherst Media, and received news that while my books aren’t available as a Kindle publication, they are available in a number of other electronic formats.

We’re not on Kindle for now. We are on iPad, Nook, Kobo, Google Books and dozens of Android tablets and PCs through protected Pdf and ePub files.

IPG, our distributor into bookstores and Amazon, is having a pricing issue with Amazon. Amazon is demanding that Kindle books sell for next to nothing, basically cutting out profits for authors and publishers. Amazon, as a threat, has pulled over four thousand books from Kindle including ours. IPG is working on it to establish fair terms and has the support of the publishing industry.

Another issue is that the Kindle book quality is very poor. We encourage our readers to buy their eBooks from Apple or from Amherst Media direct. In fact, we are now having an eBook sale on our site. Our eBook quality is the best, books are in full color with page design features and page numbers.

So that’s where we are at the moment.

Also, if you’d like to order an autographed copy of my book directly from me … that’s an option too!

I read both your flash books and they are a great resource; different than everything else I have read so far.

I have a question regarding the use of the “black foaming thing” setup. How do you determine the flash head’s zoom setting When using the “black foaming thing?” do you let the camera tell the flash head to automatically zoom with the change in focal length or do you set the flash head manually at one setting?

Neil,
I’d just like to say that your approach to flash has transformed my photography. I was mainly an available light photographer and always steered well clear of flash. Your clear explanations are great and when put into practice yield instantly better results than I’ve had before. Your wedding work is definately something that is a step up from the norm.
I continue to re read the site but have just ordered your book as a reference to my picture taking, thank you john

Just received and read your book about On Camera Flash and I like to thank you for creating this. Very well written and a lot for me to think about and most likely re-consider making pictures.

I do have one question which is about the use of ADL (Nikon). I’m asking as I noticed in your book (on one of the histogram explanations) that ADL was switched on in the Normal setting. ADL , as you most likely be aware off, is created by Nikon to balans high light and low lights to take away shadows when not using flash. Do you know what impact ADL has on taken flash pictures using TTL and, even more, TTL-BL. To me it looks like that ADL and TTL-BL will try to do similar things: balancing. Isn’t this not too much captains on the bridge. Should we not just switch ADL > OFF?

I am very new to flash photography, and would like to learn a lot from your book
Do you sell the e-book version or is it just hard copy only??
the problem is I’m not in the US so it’s kinda hard sending the hard copy version.

Just wondering when this will be available on amazon or iTunes again? It’s not available as an Ebook on Amazon or ITunes and the UK sites are blocking me being from Australia. Are there any other ways to get it electronically?

They are in Australia and they specialise in getting products out of the USA which are not allowed to be shipped to Australia.

eg: A ‘brandname’ Sunglasses I wanted, NO store in the states would ship to Australia because the ‘brand company’ has put an embargo on them selling/shipping to Australia and in fact will remove their franchise as they know they can gouge out much much larger prices when buying in Australian stores.

Including commission/freight I got a pair for daughter’s Xmas present, $167Au compared to same brand, style, model which cheapest I could find in Australia was $458. Stupid prices.

This is a genuine site, nothing illegal, they have people in the States whom legitimately purchase the item, then ship to Australia for small commission and cost of freight.

In fact, I only just got off the phone from the founder, Carolina (lovely lady) to check and yes, you can do Electronic Downloads, she will get a partner in the States to purchase it, and then forward to you.

I just did a quick ‘test’ order on the site Erin, and in the ‘International Shipping’ drop-down menu I selected ‘Email’ so the Price of Kindle US was $11.49; International Shipping Email $10, converted to Au price is $25.33.

Ahh you meant a test on the price USA site didn’t you? Yes that’s probably my best bet. In the meantime it has let me download direction and quality of light from iTunes so I’ll have some reading to do in the meantime :-)
Thanks for your help trev and neil

I am a big fan of yours, have all your 3 books and your 2 craftsy course on flash, must say teachers like you are few and far…

I have a question which has been bothering me and it is like this that at some places you suggest to underexpose the camera by near about a stop and then add bounce flash and at other places you advise to overexpose by almost 1.7 stops and then add flash. How do you decide which way to go, over or under. Feeling confused please help: (

Hi there! I would have to see that in context where I said to over-expose (by 1.7 stops), because it doesn’t quite make sense that you’d over-expose.

Unless, you are referring to this:exposure metering for the bride’s dress.
If so, please please keep in mind that we are NOT over-exposing for the bride’s dress. We are exposing correctly. We do so by pushing up the exposure reading in our camera, but 1.7 stops to get to correct exposure for the white tone.

In this case, the ambient light will be correct, but we can still add some fill-flash just to reduce contrast. TTL fill-flash is the easiest, by dialing the FEC down.